Selling your home this fall or winter? We need to start NOW!

Quick! What’s the best season for home sales? If you said “spring,” that’s OK ― it’s the wrong answer, but I get how you could have that impression. Spring-as-the- optimal-home-selling-season is a common misconception. To be fair, the National Association of Realtors’ statistics tell us that fewer homes sell in winter than spring. That makes sense when one considers that fewer homes are listed in winter.

Studies show that a home listed in winter is more likely to sell than during any other season. Winter home sales are also quicker and bring in more money. Interestingly, the statistics hold true, whether the winter is balmy, such as in Honolulu, or frigid, like Maine. In fact, the likelihood of selling a home located in a snowy area within six months in the winter is 67 percent but it’s only 60 percent in spring and 57 percent in summer.

Therefore, though there aren’t as many homes for sale in winter, there aren’t as many buyers as well, so it all evens out to give us the ideal season for both types of real estate consumers.

Winter buyers are motivated

There are a number of reasons that compel future homeowners to head out into the elements in search of that dream home. The most common among them are job relocations or changes in family circumstance.

Whatever the reason, you’ll have far less competition on the market than any other time during the year.

Get a head start

It’s hard to imagine that in just a few months we’ll be adding extra layers of clothes, scraping our windshields and shoveling the white stuff, but it’s true. The one problem with selling in the winter, at least for the buyer, is that they have a tough time envisioning what the landscaping will look like when the snow melts.

Realty Billings can remedy this by taking the exterior photos now, while the sky is blue and the grass is green. We call this “green photography” and it’s a service we offer our clients every year at this time.

So, for the next few weeks our professional photographer will be roaming Billings neighborhoods, taking exterior photos of our listings that will hit the market in winter and early spring.

Sure, we’ll include some winter wonderland photos in the marketing materials as well, but just think how your home, with its sun-lit landscaping will stand out as a buyer scrolls through listings online!

If you think you’ll be hiring the Realty Billings team, contact us at (406) 601-1150, or by email to get your home on the list. We’ll take the interior photos later, so this pre-listing photography is easy and convenient and we won’t need access to the home’s interior.